The Face of a Story: Emotion, Myth and Suspense

To mark the launch of L’Odissea del Nord – La lancia di Odino, Massimiliano Artibani, journalist and lecturer in film criticism, interviews the author, Fabio Battaglia. The conversation will introduce the novel, explore its origins and discuss the debated theory that places Homer’s epics in the Baltic—a theory that inspires the novel’s plot—offering audiences a first glimpse of the story and its characters.

Part of Art Week, the event takes place at Rome’s Open Studio Gallery, whose exhibition programme explores emotion in portraiture. This setting invites a dialogue between image and word: a portrait captures an expression and hints at a story; a novel gives that story a voice, tracing its tensions and revealing desires and contradictions.

Set in Sweden, the thriller weaves together murders, ancient symbols and struggles for power with a hypothesis that redraws the map of the Homeric world: that the places described in the Iliad and the Odyssey should be sought in the Baltic. This theory becomes integral to the narrative, guiding the protagonist, Fausto Prevali, through an investigation in which the past both illuminates the present and makes it more unsettling.

The conversation between Artibani and Battaglia will explore the craft behind the novel: the creation of suspense, the vivid imagery of its scenes and the complexity of its characters. The gallery’s theme offers a particular perspective: how can an emotion be made perceptible? Which details allow us to glimpse a person’s inner life? In portraiture, a glance or a posture may suggest it; in fiction, it may emerge through a gesture, a choice or a word left unspoken.

An invitation to discover a compelling story and reflect on the arts’ capacity to give form to human experience and engage viewers and readers alike.